Who will be the sacrifice?
The oldest building in the world is the Twins library in Africa. The library was built before the pyramids. It has not always been a library, there were many things that went on in the building before documented history. The legend of the library starts as a sacrificial location. The leaders of the Emopian religion would select young men to be sacrificed. Being chosen as a sacrifice was seen as a huge honor to the family. In order to be considered the young man must be of good stature physically. Only the most handsome boys would be eligible. There were many tests that the young men must complete before they would even be considered. The first test was a test of athleticism. The boys would train to become warriors. They would train to increase their strength and agility, running up to 15 miles a day. Sacrificing the best warrior was thought to please the gods and the spirit of the fighter would protect over the people. They would also test their survival skills. The young men would be left alone in the forest for 23 days and night with noting to help them but their knowledge. If the boys survived the time left alone in the jungle, they would be able to participate in the next test. They third test would test their kindness and morals. They would have to prove themselves to the elders and show that they had a good character. If the elders in the community felt that they were of good character, there was a chance that they could be chosen for the sacrifice. The young men that were left in the competition were the best of the best, but the tribe would not want their genes to go to waste. Before the young men passed the final stage, they would have to marry and father a child. The child guaranteed that there would be security in the future of the tribe, and that there would always be a bloodline that was superior. If one of the young men fathered a daughter and the other fathered a son, those two offspring’s were destined to marry. After the men had fathered a child, they would raise it for no more than 2 years. On the eve of their child’s birthday, the fathers would be put under the final and most important test. This test would either make their name live on forever as being good enough to be one of the gods, or they would have done all of that training only to let their entire village down. The sacrifice would take place once every 10 years, so the anticipation of it was long awaited. There was an old man in the village whose age was unknown but he was rumored to have seen every sacrifice. It was up to him to choose the sacrifice every 10 years. The young men eligible to be a sacrifice would have to prove to the old man that they would be able to return to the village as a spirit. The man would take a “journey” that consisted of getting really high and lying in the middle of an empty field. If a young man could tell the story that the old man had heard 100 times before, then that young man would be the sacrifice. -Vanessa Elgohary